


ignoring something doesn't make it go away

by quizkwatsh



Series: figuring out who you are is hard [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Teen Angst, Trans Peter Parker, any peter parker is a csa survivor, implied/referenced canon sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 16:38:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12016773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quizkwatsh/pseuds/quizkwatsh
Summary: Spider-manHe hates that name. It is worse than being called mister Parker, because this name is something he choose for himself.Or: Peter Parker is realising that maybe he isn't a guy at all.





	ignoring something doesn't make it go away

**Author's Note:**

> peter parker is amab, and trying to figure out what he identifies as (this fic uses male pronouns because that is what peter is still using himself, when that changes in a later fic, the pronouns will also change, possibly more than once because figuring out how you identify is difficult)
> 
> content warning: this fic references transphobic comments being made. there are also two small mentions of skip, and therefore references how peter is a csa survivor, even though it isn't explicitly stated.

“He was being a total asshole, and threatened me with detention for defending for trans people! So yeah I am angry, and going to see the principal about it,” MJ says with a glare at Ned, “I know you probably don’t care, but giving other people basic respect matters to me.” 

“I- I do care, I just think you’re only getting yourself detention with this,” Ned says with a gulp. MJ tends to have that effect on people. She can be very scary when she wants to be.

“If they give me detention for this I will take it up with someone else, and Morita knows this. He knows to take me seriously on these things.”

“It isn’t like there was even anyone in that class who cared besides you, so it doesn’t really matter," Ned tries to placate her.

“How do you know that? For all you know there were closeted trans people there. And even if there weren’t, he was teaching our stupid, young and impressionable classmates to have these sort of attitudes, which affects the world,” With that she gets up to presumably talk to principal Morita.

“She is so frustrating, it is like she doesn't even care that one of these days she is going to get herself suspended,” Ned says with a sigh.

When no reply comes, Ned turns to Peter suddenly realising that he hasn’t said anything during the entire lunch period.

“What’s up?” Ned asks, looking over at Peter.

After a beat, Peter forces himself to say in a casual tone, “You should know by now, that there is no point in arguing with her about these things.”

He is trying to tell himself that Ned expressing concern about MJ getting in trouble, doesn’t mean that he thinks trans people are fake. Telling himself this doesn’t change how tight his chest feels, but then again he has been feeling sick with anxiety ever since the topic was brought up.

At the first mention, he had felt his entire body freeze up, and by the time MJ started arguing loudly with the teacher, he was genuinely worried that he might faint. When MJ started telling Ned what had happened in their biology class, he was struggling to avoid having tears well up, both because he was so scared this meant Ned was transphobic and because MJ clearly wasn’t, which might scare him even more.

He mutters a feeble excuse to Ned about having to leave, and hurries out of the school to go on patrol.

 

_Spider-man_

He hates that name. It is even worse than being called mister Parker, because this name is something he choose for himself.

He picked it after Ben died, in an attempt to prove something. To prove that he was okay, and that included pretending that he was a man. He thought that calling himself that would fix things.

He always thought that he would grow out of this uneasiness with being male, that it was just puberty being difficult, and having to get used to it. To get used to being bitten by the spider, because the truth is that it didn’t really become an issue until then. At least not a big one.

He has had issues with his body ever since Skip, and he doesn’t really remember if anything in that changed once he started puberty. He knows it changed after the spider bite though, suddenly he got super muscular and distinctively more male. He loathes it. Everything about it feels wrong.

He knows he is supposed to want to look like this, but he hates it. He just wants to be smaller and softer again. 

Before, gender or sex didn’t really matter, he never thought much about it. 

For Peter there were never any hints about this when he was a child. He was never a “girly" kid, he was mostly focused on books and lego, and if he did play with anything else than his aunt and uncle didn’t care whether it was with typical “boy” or “girl” toys, they were just happy that he was interested in something age appropriate.

He never fit in with people his own age, he didn’t really have any friends until Ned came around, and he was already twelve by that time (He doesn’t count Skip. After all, he was not really a friend.) However none of the bullying he faced had anything to do with him being "too girly".

He still doesn’t really know what all this is about. He by now knows that he doesn’t feel like a guy, but he isn’t completely sure if that means he is a girl or if it means something else. He doesn’t even know what name or pronouns he would prefer. Everything just feels so uncomfortable and awkward.

Most days he tries to ignore all of these thoughts, because he knows that it won’t lead anywhere. That it can't lead anywhere.

However ignoring it isn’t making it go away. He wants to try and figure this out, figure out what he identifies with, what makes him feel better. Maybe he will try out different pronouns, at least in his head, to see whether he can get used to that, whether it will start feeling less awkward.

Maybe he can find something that makes him feel less dysphoric, even if it is just a little bit. He needs something to change so that he can stop feeling as if ignoring all of this, is going to kill him one day.


End file.
